I was in the confessional, feeling particularly bad about my list of the usual sins, when a priest gave me one simple prayer for a penance. I wanted to say, “But wait, I have been doing the same things over and over and over again. Didn’t you just hear all the things for which I deserve a just punishment? And then it struck me: This was mercy.
In my research for writing the second installment of the story of my relationship with M, I have been reading my old prayer journals. First of all, why was everything so dramatic in college? Second, of all it has been fascinating seeing who I was then and seeing how I have changed, and how I still need to improve.
One of the things I came across was how I imagined family life would be. M and I had a lot of serious discussion during our time in Austria, and this was a topic that came up as we wondered if and when we should date again. It is kind of fun to see how I hoped life would be. Here are a few of the hopes that came true.
1. “Husband in charge of kids so that she can work on her book or read a novel” Now I have not written a book, but I am doing a lot more writing than I once did in my married life. I do feel that writing has been a kind of fulfillment for me these last few years that I had forgotten about when we first had children. Usually it happens not while M is watching the kids, but during our daily quiet times or after the kids are in bed. And I am finding plenty of time for reading novels and other things.
2. “Group of women to spend time with”Developing friendships always takes time, but it is worth the effort. Everytime I get together with lady friends or have a good conversation online, I am reminded of how important it is for women to support and have each other in their lives. It is especially helpful with family life to have the support of other women.
3. “Family meal time is sacred” When the professor works at home, we sometimes have all three meals together. In fact, he would forget to eat lunch sometimes if it were not for the family eating lunch with him (#philosopherproblems). Family mealtime has become crucial to our spiritual life and cultural life as well, since it is at these times we pray together, read Scripture together, or at lunch read fairy tales together.
4. “I do not want stacks”-This means “no clutter.” We are not always the best at this, especially on select spots on the counter, the dining room table which doubles as the pre-K craft table, but we have become pretty good at having a spot for everything, and eliminating the offending stacks fairly often. We also purge the house a couple of times a year of things we do not need.
5.”Children should be everywhere”–but God is in charge I had a strong desire for a large family in college, but also realized that when it comes to having children, we only have so much control. Bringing new people into the world/adding to the perfection of the universe is not something to be taken lightly. And I am so thankful I have been blessed with these four amazing human beings. Sometimes I look at them all together and it blows my mind that I bore them all in my womb, gave birth to them, and tended to their basic needs day in and day out. How did I get to four children already?
6. Home cooked meals I love home cooked meals, and I love cooking home cooked meals. But I also love the ease of ordering out when I need to, or just would like a break. Food is yummy!
7. Close tight-knit family This is something I had growing up in my own home. So far the kids are all really close, and I figure if we do what we can to promote a close family, it will probably happen.
When I read the readings for today, I was pretty excited to write about Jesus’ genealogy. Four women of the Old Testament and Our Lady are all present there.
Who are these women? Why did God choose for them to be in the line of His son?
This is probably my favorite devotion that I have ever written for BIS.
The dresses arrived in the mail, and I decided I might as well try them on. My 6 year old daughter decided to come and watch. I don’t normally change in front of my daughters; maybe I should more often.
“Why does your belly look like that, Mom? Why does it have wrinkles and brown marks? Mine does not look like that.”
“It looks like this because I had babies. I once had a smooth belly like yours.”
“Oh. Okay.”
I put on the dress. I am going to be in my sister’s wedding next summer and we have been hunting down the right dress for her bridesmaids, most of them being the mother of at least two children. It seems that the average bridesmaid dress was not designed to flatter the postpartum body. But we found a dress at a chain store which flattered me at 6 months postpartum after my fourth monster baby.
So, I am in this dress, and my six year old wants to show her sisters.
“Here comes the queen! Wave to the queen as she walks by!”
I snap a few pictures to send to my sister, to see if she likes the dress. And we go back to change. My three year old tags along.
“See Mom’s belly!” my six year old tells her.
“Mom, do you ever wish that you did not have babies so that you could have a smooth belly?”
“No dear. I would much rather have four babies than a smooth belly. My four babies are much more important than what my belly looks like.”
“Children are more important?”
“Yes.”
These four people are worth any amount of shrunken, funny looking postpartum stretch marks and extra squishy belly.
I have not left the house since Monday (on which I took a feverish baby to the doctor to discover he has an ear infection). I did go outside yesterday when it was not raining.
Anyway, I was climbing the steps after a squeezed in laundry switch, thinking about how I have way to much to do these days, and how the house is a mess (by my standards), and how I am somehow keeping my cool (though impatience still reigns strong internally), when St. Therese of Lisiuex’s beautiful words came into my head, Everything is a grace. And I realized, it is all Grace, everything I struggle with, the breaking down of all my ideas of how my house should be run is really a grace.
And it is sooo hard for me to let go of the cleaning things. It is an internal stripping of my attachment to order. I hate to let go. But I have no choice. If I don’t let go, my child’s education suffers. My vocation suffers.
So, I looked up the full quotation of St. Therese, and realized, my understanding of everything as grace was the same as hers:
Everything is a grace, everything is the direct effect of our Father’s love—difficulties, contradictions, humiliations, all the soul’s miseries, her burdens, her needs – everything, because through them, she learns humility, realizes her weakness – Everything is a grace because everything is God’s gift. Whatever be the character of life or its unexpected events—to the heart that loves, all is well.
Ever since we started school, I am feeling myself being stripped away. It may sound dramatic, but it is life-changing for me.
And it will be so good for the kids once I get past all of my letting go. Instead of me cleaning half my mornings and sending them off to play, I am spending hours every morning WITH them. I am teaching them, talking to them, trying to be patient. And it is all a GRACE.
And the baby wakes needing to be nursed AGAIN to sleep as I try to finish my blog writing and finally get to the kitchen, and it is another surrender. It is a grace. I am being stripped.
Everything is a grace because everthing is God’s gift.
And I can hear the knowing thoughts of people who have laughed at/with me for years about my dusting habits. They understand how hard it is for me to not squeeze my dusting into my weekly routine. And it sounds ridiculous to say that I am “settling” for twice a month dusting.
…everything is the direct effect of our Father’s love—difficulties, contradictions, humiliations, all the soul’s miseries, her burdens, her needs – everything, because through them, she learns humility, realizes her weakness…
His grace is doing this to me. My vocation is bringing me to God. It is making me more like Him.
And maybe one day I will be like this:
Whatever be the character of life or its unexpected events—to the heart that loves, all is well.
You see, the letting go, is teaching me to love. To love. And is not that what we are all meant for, love? If my house is clean but I have not love to give to my children and my husband, it is nothing. But if I love, all will be well. And to learn to love I must be stripped away and give myself up to Grace.
I am over at Church POP today, writing about married couples in literature. This was a hard list to compile as most of my favorite novels are full of unmarried, widowed, or onesided marriages (one person good and the other not so good).
I tried to stick with classic novels or widely known novels for the list, but if you have a great example, please comment on the article.
I wrote this back in May, anticipating where I would be at this point, and it really is a good reminder for me. Each week of postpartum recovery has me feeling better, but also struggling again with remembering the important parts of this vocation. Check out my devotion on today’s daily Mass readings at Blessed is She:
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I have been a mother for seven years now, which is from when my first child came into existence. It was something I felt called to do, something I wanted, and something that I am glad to be. But there are days when I wonder why I thought this would be fulfilling.
As I anticipated the birth of my fourth baby, I started to dread the sacrifices that a new baby requires of me. The middle of the night feedings, the discomfort of milk coming in, the post-partum recovery, and so on, which all made sense given the months of undiagnosed post-partum depression I went through after my third baby was born. But now that I know how to get help for that, I realized that I was being filled with a lot of irrational fears and even spiritual attacks on my vocation…
I had my first child, G, 9 months after getting married, and a little over 10 months after college graduation (granted it was my Master’s graduation). I was 22 years old when she was born, and while we had made some friends in our new city when she was born, I did not really know them very well.
Being home alone with a baby, I spent a lot of time online. I looked on as my college and high school friends posted about jobs, Friday and Saturday evenings out, and I felt like I was the only one posting about having a baby. Of course, they all supported and loved me and my husband as the first parents in our group of friends, but I still felt isolated.
Like Marion Fernandez-Cueto wrote, I daydreamed about what my life could have been, had I not had a child so soon. If I had not gotten married, I probably would have continued in graduate school. Instead I was working part-time as an administrative assistant for a parish Religious Education program while my husband made a graduate student fellowship wage while studying for his PhD. Money was tight, and we were frugal.
When my first was born, I was so self-centered and immature that I have been spending years getting over the selfishness of my childhood. Like Haley Stewart wrote, motherhood broke me, and now that we are about to have our fourth, it still is breaking me.
But it will also be my salvation, if I live my vocation as I should.
Last week, in a fit of pregnancy hormones, I completely lost it. My husband, at my request, had set up the co-sleeper bassinet for this next baby to sleep in, and it haunted me the whole day until that night when I lost it.
I sobbed and whined, and my husband, who always is right when I am being selfish, could not reason it out of me. I was irrationally afraid of life with a newborn again. I was irrationally not wanting to give the gift of physical care to the child I have been carrying for 8 months. I was so afraid.
Then it hit me, the irrationality was a spiritual attack. I was being attacked by the evil one in my very motherhood, in my very vocation.
My motherhood and wifehood is not about being blissful and comfortable day to day, it is about giving myself as a gift to others, so that one day I can have the ultimate human end of eternal happiness with my Creator and Savior. And it is hard. It will never stop being hard, but it is the gift I am called to give.
Our earthly vocation will not always make us happy now, but if we persevere in it, we will be happy forever. It is the same in any vocation, to priesthood, religious life, consecrated single life, and marriage; we will not always be happy.
I then asked my husband to pray for me, for protection from this spiritual attack, for grace to overcome my fears. And he did, as he always does. He lay his hands on me, and we prayed. Peace came over me as we prayed, but the aftermath of the raw emotions took awhile to wear off.
I prayed about it through Sunday Mass the next morning, and as I went through my checklist of things to get ready for the baby the following week.
I realized that I had been looking at this coming baby selfishly. I was anticipating everything from my lonely fears. I had forgotten that I am not alone in my vocation to motherhood. My motherhood is tied irreversibly to my husband’s fatherhood, and, oh, what a wonderful husband and father he is. We are here to help each other in our vocations.
And now, I am naturally a little nervous about all the things I worried about before, especially the impending labor, but I know that grace will help me love through it all.
1. Happy Easter! We survived all three long liturgies of the Triduum! We were ready early, so it was the perfect time to take a family photo. Some children even fell asleep. I, however, spent the Easter vigil being kicked from the inside and squirmed on from the outside. Fortunately, after six years of little children, I have learned how to pray at Mass despite being bombarded with continuous motion. We had a nice time with our house guests, and a had a large group on Easter Sunday for dinner.
Our empty tomb awaiting the Easter egg hunt. We did inside, because Minnesota.
2. Also, Happy Feast of St. Gemma Galgani! She is my confirmation saint, so I made a chocolate cake (which I have been craving for a month) to celebrate. We decided the Easter egg sprinkles would be appropriate for the occasion. Her feast often falls during Lent, but not this year!
We have an icon I purchased at the church where she is buried in Lucca, Italy during my semester abroad, and a cousin gave us this first class relic of St. Gemma which he acquired in Rome. It is weird and cool to have a tiny piece of St. Gemma’s body in our home.
3. After we drove my sister to the airport on Tuesday, I took the children to get some seeds for the garden. I have never started seeds inside, but we thought we would give it a try. I hope this container I found works.
We are trying to grow yellow pear tomatoes, sweet peppers of various colors (hopefully we planted a seed for the purple variety–that is what they wanted), transplanted some basil seedlings, petunia seeds (I am planning on flowers for the yard this year!), and some sunflower seeds that came in Easter baskets.
4. And now that is is April, I am going to be updating about the garden. M got the garden all ready for me this week, and today I planted seeds outside that are supposed to be safe to plant in Minnesota in April. As long as we don’t get a hard freeze again, all these should grow nicely. The lettuce and peas of these varieties we had great success with last year, but the chard, colorful carrots, and green cabbages are all new for us. I am always nervous starting things from seeds. It is pretty neat that the tiny little seeds can make big tasty plants. (I actually planted the peas earlier than recommended, but I really want to eat them! If they fail to grow, I will try again in May). I am hoping that this early Minnesota spring sticks around.
5. Tomorrow is Divine Mercy Sunday, and we managed to pray the whole novena as a family. Since my retreat, I have been renewing my devotion to Divine Mercy. The chaplet is such a simple and powerful prayer. The kids picked up all the prayers within one time of praying it. G and L both were leading decades by the end of the novena.
6. In case you are wondering about how I am doing after my post about dreading a newborn earlier this week, I am feeling a lot better about it after processing my feelings. The best comment from a friend was, “You can do hard things!” And she is right; I do hard things everyday. I will adjust to having a newborn and the hard things will become easier. And this baby is not for me, but is for everyone, and is a unique human being created to be united with God. Anything I have to do for this baby will not be too much.
7. Lastly, M and I wrote our first article together, and it was published on ChurchPOP this week. We spent all of the Autumn and a lot of the Winter watching films from the Vatican’s Film list “values” category, and finally got to reviewing and ranking them. We will be writing two more articles about the list soon! Check it out, if you have not done so yet!
This is one of those posts that my friend Anna would call a “Mom Confession.” I have one to make, and probably I just need a pep talk. It has some content that may not be familiar to those who have never been post-partum or around a post-partum woman from day one until the baby is one.
I have been struggling against a dread of the newborn phase for the entire pregnancy, actually since I first got my cycles back after F was born. I was visiting Buffalo, NY at the time, and discussed my unreadiness while using a hot pack to battle a small bout of mastitis/clogged duct. I had a rough first year with F. She was a great baby, my easiest yet, but I spent 9 months dealing with infections that only women can get, 4 months dealing with post-partum depression, and barely knew anybody in the Twin Cities. On top of that I was dealing with my first Minnesota winter.
The three girls.
The first two months with F were actually really pleasant. She was born in early November, so I took some walks with her as a newborn. We had grandparents helping for two weeks, people we knew brought us meals, so I actually saw people without much effort, Thanksgiving was brought to us by our Wisconsin relatives, Advent was lovely, and we traveled over Christmas. Then we came home in early January, and the PPD and isolated stay at home mom loneliness set in. The only way to see people and attempt to make friends was to venture out into the Minnesota cold with 3 children under 4. Then infections.
Since F has been 18 months, things have been really nice. I feel like I am finally used to having this many kids. I remember last summer just enjoying the kids and our family, not really wanting it to change. But we also felt like we needed to be open to having more children, we wanted more children, we still want more children. And here we are about to have another child in our arms. The newest child is squirming inside me as a write this. I feel like this year of being content with three kids has been really good for me, like an amazing retreat. I have not been night nursing for almost a year now. I have not been nursing at all for five months. But I am feeling afraid of the change before us. I am not looking forward to sleepless nights. I am not looking forward to being post-partum, especially the physical recovery.
32 weeks along and counting.
What I am looking forward to is the baby having a regular nap schedule, and a bedtime, and being able to be put to sleep easily. All of our children have gotten to that point, and that is when I feel the most relaxed with a baby. I crave a loose schedule, ie. morning nap around 9, afternoon nap around 2, bedtime around 8. But I dislike the in between time, when baby is too little for structure.
This is the point when you should tell me that it is just for a short time. Or you could tell me that I don’t need to feel guilty about not being a huge fan of the newborn-6 month stage. You could say it really is a hard time. I know some people love the stage, and I recognize the perks. I just love my routine. Being more flexible is something I need to work on, so I guess baby is going to help me with that.
